Kari's next contract

I'd like to get an idea of what others are thinking as far as what kind of contract extension we're looking at for Lehtonen. I tend to be in the camp that thinks you shouldn't really pay a goalie very a crazy amount of money but I don't think GMJN is on the same page as I am with that. With the way Kari played last season and now this season I believe he has been as good as anyone could we be looking at a 6+ million a year cap hit?

I'd like to get an idea of what others are thinking as far as what kind of contract extension we're looking at for Lehtonen. I tend to be in the camp that thinks you shouldn't really pay a goalie very a crazy amount of money but I don't think GMJN is on the same page as I am with that. With the way Kari played last season and now this season I believe he has been as good as anyone could we be looking at a 6+ million a year cap hit?

I'd like to get an idea of what others are thinking as far as what kind of contract extension we're looking at for Lehtonen. I tend to be in the camp that thinks you shouldn't really pay a goalie very a crazy amount of money but I don't think GMJN is on the same page as I am with that. With the way Kari played last season and now this season I believe he has been as good as anyone could we be looking at a 6+ million a year cap hit?

I'm with you in the don't pay top dollars for goalies camp, there's just too many damn good goalies out there available for cheap (and goaltender performance tends to be way too erratic to reliably predict) to go in deep on a contract for a goalie. There's alot of reasons to say don't give Kari a big contract, instead try and find a nice replacement on the cheap.

On the other hand I also believe in rewarding a guy for past performance, and for that reason I won't complain if they do give him somewhere in the range of 5-6 million. My only suggestion would be that they limit the length of the extension to 3-4 years, to provide some flexibility in case the injury problems do return or his performance does crater.

Huge difference between taking a small discount vs taking an insanely stupid offer that can't be refused.

Brzy signed for exactly what he asked for. It's the reason Phoenix traded him. He wasn't going to cave and no discount was offered

Plus, when is the last time a Dallas player took a discount? Ott, Daley, and Robidas all signed market contracts. We all said they give Dallas a discount too. The mythical home town discount is pretty rare.

I haven't heard any noise about the 35+ contract going away so assuming it stays in the next CBA, I think it would not be smart for Kari to sign for longer than 5 years. He'd have one last opportunity for a bigger pay day as long as he stays under 6 years.

If he doesn't prove something to the rest of the league in the playoffs before he becomes an UFA then that will probably knock his value down a bit. I can't imagine a team giving him 5 years at $6 mil/per without having some level of success in the playoffs. And while he's been better about staying healthy here he's still not exactly in the running for a perfect attendance award. Most of the goalies listed above making pretty big money are all generally considered more durable than Kari.

Depending on what's out there and what we have here I would hope to stay around $5 mil/year for 3-4 years. (I realize this may be unrealistic, I just hope it wouldn't be much more than that...)

Brzy signed for exactly what he asked for. It's the reason Phoenix traded him. He wasn't going to cave and no discount was offered

Plus, when is the last time a Dallas player took a discount? Ott, Daley, and Robidas all signed market contracts. We all said they give Dallas a discount too. The mythical home town discount is pretty rare.

No he didn't. He took a longer term RFA contract that he's turned into one of the top contracts in the league. His contract was market value for RFA forwards and almost identical to David Booth. It was a major but calculated risk. It's also become the standard for a guy like JVR.

I love Loui, but he had 1 good season before he signed that contract. Well, technically he was about a month into another solid year before signing.

I'd love to be on board with the home town discount myth, but like I said, they are very rare. Even Goligoski's deal is in the same area as other RFA defenders giving up UFA years. It's typically not that difficult to predict a guy re-signing a contract. The NHL is a copycat league. The only time it get's really hard is on July 1st when NHL GM's like to throw reason out the window.